Four Little Letters
by Ficalicious
Summary: Running is what she does. Its all she knows. Its the one thing she can do when there is nothing to be done. Kate POV. Jate


**Title: Four Little Letters**

**Rating: PG13+**

**Summary: Kate POV. Kate reflects on why it she always runs.**

**A/N: Not really happy with this one. I'm trying to write a completely different thing but then things like this always happen. It's very frustrating! I've got the Jack Johnson working for me, the cat keeping me company and still I cant get out what I want to get out! Grr Argh! Hopefully someone out there understands, and possibly likes this little ramble.**

**Disclaimer: Not mine…blah blah…JJ…blah blah…Lost…blah blah…Matthew Fox…wish was mine…blah blah! Just borrowing! ;p**

I saw that movie once. The one with the bride that always ran away. Corny, I know. But I can relate to her. Not the endless amount of engagements bit, but the fear of staying, of dealing. I don't even remember where it was I saw it. No doubt some dingy motel somewhere, late in the night when I couldn't sleep.

The wind is howling tonight. Whipping my hair around my face, stinging like buckshot. It doesn't stop me, though.

The urge to run is too strong. It's something that is no longer a conscious decision. It's not even a choice any more. It runs in my blood. Runs in my heart, my brain. Even here, in this place, I still run. This place, so far away from what it was I was running from. But I still manage to find new things to run from on a daily basis. In a place where there is nowhere to go, I'm still running.

I have replaced my fear of my crimes with a fear of staying still. After so many years on the move, this deadly paradise may be what finally catches me. If it isn't the monster out in the jungle that does it, the last grasp I have on my sanity may finally slip from my clutches and I'll hurtle myself off a cliff.

The people around me are noticing. It's hard for them not to in such close quarters. I attempt normalcy. I collect fruit for the group. I build fires, I help people. I go on the hikes… I flirt with Sawyer. And there lies the issue. Sawyer. I know that the attraction I feel for him transitory. The low hum that burns in my belly whenever we shamelessly play with one another is not a feeling of attraction for him, but a longing for human intimacy.

The two months of self imposed celibacy that many of the survivors have placed upon themselves has created a sexual hum that is at breaking point. I know that sex with Sawyer would be just that. Sex. Fantastic, of course, what with his chiselled body and gorgeous looks. But it would still just be sex. A meeting of flesh, a fulfilment of pleasure and then nothing. He has no desire for any deeper connection, makes that perfectly clear with every leer, every subtle (and not so subtle) innuendo he makes. He wants to get laid. So do I. So what is the problem with me?

Of course. I don't really need to ask. He's always lurking there, just below my conscious mind. Dark hair and dark eyes. Broad shoulders, but not nearly broad enough to carry the weight of the world he has burdened himself with. Jack. Such a simple, uncomplicated name.

Four little letters. Jack.

Yet such a complicated man. Jack, with the gentle touch, the healer's hands, who always knows what to do, but with the terrible bedside manner. Jack, who I kissed and ran from. Jack, who I betrayed and almost got killed. Jack, who's heart I may have broken. But who can just as easily break mine. I think that might be why I haven't pushed the issue of an apology. Because I worry what he might say. That he wishes I hadn't kissed him, that those feelings that I thought he _did_ have for me were just an illusion. I would rather hurt him than have him shattering me.

Yet, I still come running back to him. My mind cannot wander far; my legs never do. Even as he sits with _her_, ignoring me, when I am stationery, I am coming at him at a canter.

It's insane, I know. I trust Jack with my life, my lie, yet I cannot trust him with my heart. This man who has healed me in so many ways, I cannot let mend the Sellotaped shards of that organ in my chest.

I know why it is him that is stopping me from being with Sawyer. I don't want a quick, meaningless, encounter. I've had too many of them over the years to remember. I don't want another disappointment, another person disappointed, to add to my list. And I would have two. Jack, because I had betrayed him, and Sawyer, because I would ask too much of him.

What I could have with Jack could be so much more. I could really love him. Such an uncomplicated thing.

Four little letters. Love.

Yet something that I can barely comprehend. Do I deserve to love? Does Jack deserve all of the bad things that would come with loving me? Could I really unleash all of that on him?

The stinging wind, the burning in my legs as I run against the gale, thigh deep in water is what gives me the answer.

I've never been one for doing things the easy way, anyway.

_Fin._


End file.
